


fp's adventures in domesticity

by jugheadjones



Series: love is patient, love is kind [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: M/M, fp is not in prison, fp plays house, i started writing this a hundred years ago and it just never went anywhere so take it now, take it from my fingers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-09 00:30:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12265218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: Fred's a professional when it comes to stretching himself thin, can usually make ends meet even when the rope's falling apart. But Fred can't run a household and recover from a gunshot wound at the same time, especially with both Archie and Jughead living there.That's where FP comes in.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ronnieandcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronnieandcher/gifts).



**i.**

“Did you get the kids breakfast?” asks Fred.

FP thinks about it, remembers the smoke alarm he’d slapped off it’s base with the wooden end of the broom so he wouldn’t wake him, his charred, gluey attempt at pancakes still sitting in a miscellany of pots and pans waiting for him downstairs. Remembers shoving two twenty-dollar bills into Archie and Jughead’s hands and pushing them toward the corner store: their rapturous, sixteen-year-old joy at being handed such riches and thrown toward the high school.

“Yeah,” he says. “Don’t worry about it, baby.”

**ii.**

FP settles into his role as head of the Andrews household the way he’d been taught to swim on the Southside: a freezing cold full-body dunk in the river. He paddles only because no one else is going to do it for him. There’s four of them strapped in this sinking canoe, and he’s the only one who can bail.

Only it’s beautiful at the same time, and sometimes he thinks it’s a dream because he can’t be this lucky: sleeping next to Fred every night, helping him shower in the morning. He brings him meals and dotes on him, ensures he takes his pills and does his exercises and asks himself daily how and when and where he ever got it through his thick skull that this was anything other than all he ever wanted. Why ten, twenty years ago he couldn’t have looked Fred in the eye and told him _I want to be with you, I want to be the one to take care of you, forever._

But everything's easier in hindsight. Love is no exception. 

**iii.**

It’s just that there’s so much to _do_.

FP isn’t _new_  to cooking and shopping, he wasn’t _that_ much of a deadbeat, but he had always had Gladys to lean on when it came to parenting. Fred has done everything alone for the past two years. And Fred does _everything_.

The house is always in shape, the lawn always mown, the fridge always stocked, the answering machine clear and empty. Fred keeps his and Archie’s schedules locked in his head - he’s always ready with a _remember football practice tonight_ or a _Archie be home by seven because Jughead needs the car_. He brings special treats home from the grocery store - has a list of Archie’s favourite things tidily handwritten somewhere in the recesses of his brain, can juggle a budget effortlessly to sneak in a pack of fudgesicles if the day calls for it. There’s homemade meals every evening and pancakes every weekend and vegetables with every meal. He knows always what’s going on in their sons lives, asks about tests and friend drama with the knowledge and sensitivity of a trained counselor. Fred is a superhuman. Fred comes home from work, puts dinner on, helps the kids in-depth with their homework, goofs off with them, pays some bills, tidies, chats with the kids, goes to bed. Effortlessly. Without failing.

But Fred can’t do that anymore, so FP has to. Do all of it.

And he can’t, he’s not built for that - _good_ parenthood. Being that kind of person: dependable, solid, level-headed. He’s not a _help-you-with-your-homework_ kind of dad, wishes he was, but wishes were horses beggars would ride, or however that went. FP’s a _drown yourself in beer and self-loathing_ kind of dad, only Fred doesn’t have time for that, so he doesn’t get to either.

The grocery store is the worst. He gets lost, forgets the reusable bags, can’t read his own writing on the grocery list. The muzak is ugly, and he has no idea how he’s supposed to tell which fruits are good and which are starting to spoil. He can’t get just one plastic produce bag off the roll: they all come off in a slippery rope that he has to awkwardly re-roll around the stand, much to the chagrin of the aproned, pimple-faced sixteen year old standing by with a dustbin in hand. He curses the self-checkout machine, gets dirty looks for trying to sneak into the express lane with nine items (but god, he’s been here for hours and he just wants to go _home_ ) and puts the egg carton on the bottom of the bag and crushes it. Sometimes as he’s carrying his purchases to the car, the handles split off the bags and everything hits the ground. On no less than three occasions during the drive home he’ll remember something he was supposed to have bought and have to go back for it.

And the _brands_ . Archie only wants specific brands of this or that or the other thing, and FP can’t remember them all for the life of him. And why are there so many different kinds of everything? What happened to plain, old-fashioned tomatoes? Why did you need diced tomatoes, or _sliced_ tomatoes, or _pureed_ tomatoes, or tomato sauce or tomato paste or tomato juice? How was he to know which of these infinite, putrid tomato concoctions was the right one?

He’s too embarrassed to ask any of the sales clerks - he wouldn’t know how to phrase his question anyway - and skulks instead in looping circles through the aisles, sweltering in his Serpents jacket because it’s as close as he’s got to a security blanket in this unfamiliar territory. The carts he grabs always manage to have broken wheels that scream and scrape along the ground.

He almost has to laugh at the thought of what he must look like with his leather jacket on, squinting at the label of a can of beans. He texts Jughead a lot for help, and always gets a quick reply - _you want brown beans_ , he reads now, _Fred buys the kind with the blue label._

He almost has a panic attack when he gets to the checkout line. A hundred and seven dollars? A hundred and _seven_?

“You did pretty good,” says Fred, later, examining his receipt. “I usually don't get out under a hundred and twenty.”

He must see FP’s incredulous expression, because he adds, gently: “We’re feeding four people on this, FP, remember.”

FP does remember - he used to feed four people with a single trip to the grocery store, only it was Gladys doing the shopping, and he feels hot and ruffled and unhappy that Fred has discovered this, faintly ashamed at what had been their traditional distribution of household roles. Fred and Mary were equal opportunists, had always split things down the middle. Hence why FP can burn water but Fred can make his own pasta sauce from scratch (-well, not quite scratch, because _some_ form of canned tomato goop was involved, but FP will be damned if he’s brought home the right one.)

Not long after that, on one of his good days, Fred sits down with FP and walks him through the family finances. FP sees that what he had assumed to be airtight was actually a careful tightrope of grocery store coupons and Fred never buying anything for himself, ever. It’s kind of frightening, seeing the inner layers of a home life he had always assumed was perfect. Fred is not superhuman after all. Fred is just very, very tired and very, very poor.

**iv.**

Fred wants a shower this morning, won't even entertain the thought of a bath. Fred’s had enough of bathing. Fred’s not _supposed_ to shower this early in his recovery, but FP can’t say he blames him: there’s something depressing about sitting in a tepid pool of your own dead skin, no matter how many bubbles you put in the water.

FP takes his shirt and undershirt off for him, quick and efficient, but pauses, not wanting to tear his pants off. Fred just smiles tiredly at his hesitation. “Nothing you haven't seen before, FP.”

Fred’s thighs are all bone and no substance. _He’ll gain it back soon_ , FP tries to convince himself, _probably is already_. But he knows the truth. This is different from Fred losing some weight in his cheeks or his arms. This is an all-over smallness that is somehow much more frightening, a smallness like he's vanishing.

FP squeezes his hand, tight, tight, tight, hopes Fred gets what it means. _You’re not allowed to leave me. You’re not allowed to go anywhere._

**v.**

He forgot the fucking pasta, is the thing, because he was too hung up about the right kind of beans. So he’s just going to run back to the store and get some.

He parks Fred in front of the TV and puts on a playlist of Bruce Springsteen videos so he won't move. Sure enough, Fred’s still there when he returns. YouTube is still new to Fred, Fred who’s eternally apathetic toward his smartphone, and he can stare slack-jawed at the moving images with the kind of total rapture that a two-year-old Jughead used to manage for the fake baby aquarium attached to his crib. (“You can just watch old concerts?” he had demanded of Jughead when Jughead had set up their Smart TV. “For free? Is this legal?”)

“FP, I'm in love,” says Fred when he comes back.

“He's taken, buddy.”

“No,” says Fred, and FP comes around to the couch. Fred squeezes him at the torso (as much as Fred can squeeze anyone) in a hug. “I love you for taking care of us.”

 _I love you for taking care of us_ is different from _I love you_ , especially with Fred doped up to his eyeballs to keep him from feeling his insides knitting back together, but FP’s always been a take what you can get kind of person. 

**vi.**

FP has Fred’s pills memorized by now, has them ready to go every morning with a glass of water by the time Fred opens his eyes.

Fred had made it four days without taking his painkillers earlier in his recovery, preferring the pain to the drowsy-numb feeling of nothing, leaving him immobile on the couch once the four days had run through until Archie had found the near-full bottle and forced some past his lips. Fred radiates remorse for it in waves, and FP doesn't expect him to do it again. But it doesn't hurt to make sure.

**vii.**

“My dad makes real oatmeal,” says Archie when FP serves up a bowl of Quaker Instant Oats one morning, eyes - Fred’s eyes - glaring sharply at him. Accusing.

FP thinks he might have started crying if Jughead hadn’t stuck up for him. “Hey Archie,” he shoots back, “Shut the fuck up. My dad’s trying, okay? If you don’t like it, go make your own.”

Archie shuts up. FP stares at his son, surprised. Jughead meets his eyes briefly and then looks away.   
  
“I’m sorry I said that,” says Archie later, eyes glued to the rug in the living room. “I didn’t mean it. I’m just -”

 _Scared_ , FP fills in.  _Me, too._

“I know,” says FP as Archie trembles a bit in front of him, looking more like Jason than he’ll ever know, looking much younger than his age. Archie edges closer, and FP hugs him, because that’s what Fred would have done. “You don’t have to be sorry. I know, Red. It’s okay.”

Archie relaxes so completely that FP knows he did the right thing. It hits him with a kind of astonished reverence. 

 _I fixed it_ , he thinks impossibly, holding Fred’s son to his chest. _I did it right._

**viii.**

FP steps with Fred into the water, holding his hand tight. He and Fred used to shower together as teenagers, after a particularly gruelling football practice or an equally tiring romp in the hay, and the memory of it is so bittersweet now that it moves him almost to tears. 

FP cranks the hot water until he can barely stand it, but Fred still shivers in the spray. Fred holds onto him as FP works the shampoo into his hair.

The effort of standing in the shower is enough to wear him out, and his eyes are closing as FP dries him off and dresses him in new clothes. Fred’s hips are shrinking so that pyjama pants hang off him, but it's okay. They're okay.

FP has to half-carry him back to the bed. He tucks a quilt over him from the trunk at the foot of the bed.

“I love you,” whispers Fred and it’s worth it, it’s all worth it, even the fucking grocery store.


	2. hot in the city tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if the words "little league" come out of my keyboard one more fucking time i swear you guys can just kill me

The hospital recommends a boatload of therapies for him: physical therapy, massage therapy, hydrotherapy, light therapy, good old emotional therapy where you sit in a chair and talk out your feelings. Fred has the budget for less than one of these, so FP tries to pick up the pieces. Massages his back and shoulders for him on the couch, rocks him when he wakes up crying. Goes to work so that they can afford the one Fred needed, the endless sessions at the hospital where he tries to learn to walk again.

Fred’s standing at the stove when he gets home, tiredly stirring a pot of soup and looking like he might face-plant into it at any moment. FP rushes to his side.

“Fred! What are you doing!”

“Making soup, FP,” Fred says softly, as world-weary as if FP had asked him this a million times before.

“You shouldn’t be doing that. You can get Archie to make you soup if you wanted it.”

Fred looks as if FP has suggested asking Archie to slit his wrists. “Archie’s doing his homework.”

“Archie’s a sixteen year old boy, he’s up there jerking off into a sock or reading comics or something.” FP takes the spoon from Fred’s hands and lays it on the side of the stove. “Let me do it.”

There’s a ghost of a smile on Fred’s voice now. “Is that what you did when you were sixteen, FP?”

“Shut up and sit down.”

Fred sinks into a kitchen chair. “You think you’re a big tough guy, don’t you. I should tell your gang buddies you’re making me soup.”

“Fred, shut the fuck up for once in your life.”

The soup’s already boiling and he ladles it into the kind of pretty porcelain bowl that wouldn’t have lasted more than a week in his trailer. A lot of dishes got broken around FP. The side effect of your divorce and your alcoholic tendencies colliding at the same point of your life. He places it in front of Fred with undue ceremony.

“Here you go.”

Fred rotates his spoon in the broth. “Have some if you want, there’s lots.”

FP doesn’t want, but he pours himself some anyways. Takes a seat opposite Fred, so that their feet brush companionably under the table. Fred slurps his soup like an annoying teenager, and FP kicks him gently in the ankle.

“Ow.”

“Quit slurping.”

Fred lies down on the couch after, and FP lays a blanket over him. Writes _soup crackers_ on the shopping list.

“Stay,” says Fred, and reaches out to grab FP’s wrist.

FP stays.

* * *

When he gets home on Thursday he’s treated to the saddest sight he’s seen in awhile: Archie alone in the front yard, alternatively kicking his football a few feet away and then jogging to go get it. He pulls the truck into the driveway and steps out.

“How are you doing, Red?”

Archie’s sweating a bit, clad in only a T-shirt and jeans despite the cool air. He stands with the football clasped between both hands, his weight shifted to one hip. “Okay.”

“How’s your dad?”

“He’s doing okay. You know. Same as usual.”

“How’s your homework?” asks FP, waiting for the guilty flush he’s sure is going to overtake Archie’s face. FP wasn’t exactly a stickler for grades, but God knew Fred would have something to say about Archie tooling around with a football before his homework was done. But Archie just shrugs.

“We had a study group at Betty’s. I’m all done.” Archie throws the football high up in the air and catches it. There’s something desolate about the action, purposeless. It was hard to practice football by your lonesome.

“Does Fred usually do this with you?”

“Yeah. Well, we play catch or something. He’s good at baseball and basketball, but -”

“Not so much a football guy,” finishes FP for him, smiling slightly. Archie smiles back.

“You guys were on the team together, right?”

“Fred never made the team,” FP corrects. “But I wouldn’t have tried out if it wasn’t for him.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I didn’t even know I was any good. I just went to keep your dad company.”

“Wow.”

“He used to practice with me whenever. Night or day. He’d set up field goals, and I’d kick ‘em.”

Archie rotates the football in his hands, staring down at it. “When I was a kid, I used to play soccer a lot. And I wasn’t really good at it. I probably would have quit, only he made it fun. He used to say “it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about-”

“Playing the game,” finishes FP with a wry smile. Archie nods.

“He used to coach my little league.”

“I know,” says FP, because everyone knows, even Jughead had done a stint on Fred’s team in elementary school, though getting the money together had been a scrape. “Far be it from me to criticize how Freddie taught you to throw, but do you want some pointers?”

“Really?” Archie gets the biggest grin FP’s ever seen on him, and all at once he wants to do it again. Make him smile like that.

FP claps his hands. “Toss it here. Let’s see what we can do before dinner.”

* * *

Jughead comes and sits with him by the TV after dinner, which he hasn’t done in awhile. There’s a rerun of some old movie playing, and they sit in comfortable silence for awhile, their feet stretched out onto the coffee table. Jughead turns to him during a commercial.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?” FP’s taken aback by how much Jughead looks like him: the dark hair, the line of his jaw. The last few months seem to have edged him closer to manhood, his eyes cooler and more knowing. It makes FP want to hug him for a long time. And FP doesn’t hug often.

“When did you know you liked boys?”

“What makes you think I like boys.”

“We’re living in Fred Andrews’ house. You’re making him all his meals. You’re sleeping in his bed. I’m having trouble buying the 'best friends since high school football' explanation lately.”

“You’re getting too smart for your own good, Jughead.”

“So when did you know?”

 _When I met him_ , is the right answer, but he’d rather bite his fingertips off than say it. “I guess I was fourteen.”

Fourteen, the first time they met. Sixteen, the first time they made love, the first time Fred looked at him in that blurry, adoring way, like FP took him to high heaven. Probably seventeen the first time he’d had the guts to say it, Fred asleep on his chest in the downstairs rec room, the kind of sleepy, lazy, comfortable love he wanted so badly now. _I love you_ , one hand tracing the curve of Fred’s shoulder blade. _I love you_ , in the hospital room, Fred somewhere too far gone to hear him. _I love you_ now, always, pounding a refrain against the back of his mind, waiting for him to be able to say it again.

“And you just knew?”

“You don’t have to know all at once, Jughead. Figuring yourself out takes awhile.”

“Okay.” Then Jughead does something he really hasn’t done in awhile, leans up and kisses FP on the cheek. “Night, dad.”

FP watches him climb off the couch and go, heading upstairs with a confident, even stride. The kind of walk you maybe get from being on the receiving end of Fred’s parenting for awhile. It makes him miss the seven-year-old Jughead used to be, but it makes him proud at the same time.

Maybe that’s what it’s all about.


End file.
